


All I Want For Christmas

by Honey_Lavender



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mutual Pining, set immediately after Season 3, we're going full Hallmark guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 04:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13022967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honey_Lavender/pseuds/Honey_Lavender
Summary: Chris needs to bring a girlfriend to his family's upcoming holiday in the mountains, and Eva's his only hope. Just a favor between friends with benefits, though. It's not like it will change anything between them.Right?





	All I Want For Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> I read that in Norway the main Christmas celebrations are actually on the 24th, so this is a heads up for any fellow Americans as to why I wrote it that way. I tried to keep it reasonably culturally accurate but I'm also mostly drawing from my own holiday experiences so there's bound to be some inconsistencies. Sorry for that!
> 
> And, if you are interested in getting the full experience that I had while writing this, just put Santa Tell Me and All I Want For Christmas Is You on loop for three weeks and yell incoherently along with them. You’re welcome.

**Sunday, December 11, 10:36 A.M.**  


Chris is sitting in his tiny dorm bed, switching between watching Eva get dressed and scrolling through Instagram when an alert pops up on his phone that has his chest tightening with anxiety.  


**_*1 Week Til Lodge Trip :) <3*_**  


His mom must have put it in the last time he went home to do laundry, and while he sincerely hopes she didn’t look through his photo gallery, that’s not even the most pressing issue at hand.  


When he looks up Eva is fixing her hair, so he has about five minutes before she gets the rest of her stuff together and leaves. The likely awkwardness of these next few moments that had him putting this off for weeks will be nothing compared to the humiliation he’ll face if he doesn’t just get it over with.  


It’s now or never.  


So he takes a deep breath and says, as casually as possible, “Any plans for Christmas this year?”  


It takes her a second to answer since she’s holding her hair tie in her mouth, but once it’s wrapped securely on the end of her braid she replies, “Well, Isak’s hosting the Kosegruppa party on Friday. You can come too if you want.”  


He’s only vaguely aware of what Kosegruppa is and he hasn’t hung out with Isak since the whole Yakuza thing last spring, but a party’s a party.  


“Sure, cool,” he says. “Listen, I need a favor.”  


She turns away from the mirror to look at him directly, her face wary. “What kind of favor?”  


“My family does this thing every year where they rent out a place in the mountains.”  


“Uh-huh.”  


“And my cousins were being dicks about me being the only one who’s single so I said I wasn’t and it kinda snowballed from there, and now everyone’s expecting me to show up with a girlfriend to this fuckin thing or I’ll never hear the end of it so I was wondering…”  


He pauses, but she's staring at him now and there's no going back so he soldiers on. “I was wondering if you could help me out and pretend to be her.”  


Eva sits down on the foot of his bed, stunned. He wills himself not to fidget while she processes and after a few moments she speaks.  


“On your list of possible fake girlfriends, I’m the best you’ve got?”  


“Well...yeah. You’re low-maintenance, you at least know some basic shit about me already, and I think we can make it through the week without wanting to kill each other by the end of it.” Which is not something he can say about any of his other hookups, really. In fact, if he cared to do the math (he doesn’t), whatever he and Eva are doing is the longest “relationship” of any kind that he’s ever had with a girl.  


Her eyes widen slightly. “I'm sorry, did you say a week?”  


“Yup. The 18th to the 25th, then it’s back to normal, no strings attached.”  


She doesn’t look anywhere near convinced, so he slides closer to her and trails a hand up her leg. “C’mon, it’ll be fun,” he coaxes, pressing a kiss onto her collarbone. “Don’t make me beg.”  


She’s starting to give in; he can feel it in the way she’s leaning into his chest, exposing her neck for him to suck new hickeys into over last night’s. He adds a bit of teeth, and it’s with an overwhelmingly smug sense of satisfaction that he hears a breathy,  


“Okay, if I do this-”  


He pulls back and grins as she points sternly at him.  


“You’ll owe me.”  


“Absolutely. Whatever you want. I’ll be at our service.”  


She laughs and stands, straightening her clothes. “As if you aren’t already.”  


He can’t even bring himself to be offended at that; he’s too relieved that she agreed to let anything bother him for at least the rest of the day. Except maybe the studying he has to do for his exam tomorrow, but it’s early still. He can put it off a little longer.  


“Are you sure you have to go? I’m feeling _really_ grateful right now.”  


Her eyelids lower as he pulls her gently back toward him by the hips and toys with the zip on her skirt. “I’m meeting Noora in an hour.”  


“That’s plenty of time,” he assures her, and she sinks down onto his lap, then shrieks with surprised laughter when he flips her underneath him.  


“This doesn’t count as your payback,” she warns as he kisses down her stomach.  


“Of course not,” he scoffs. “This is for both of us. You can think about what you want and tell me later.”  
Maybe this Christmas won’t be so bad after all.

  


**Sunday, December 18, 8:42 P.M.**  


Eva can’t stop picking at her nails.  


She’d started the drive with a pristine, shimmery red manicure courtesy of Sana, but now all she has to show for it is a few stubborn specks of glitter clinging to the tips of her fingers.  


She watches Chris drum his hands on the steering wheel along with the radio and squint through the blurry windshield. The snow has only gotten heavier as they drive up the mountain, and he’s slowed to an agonizing crawl to make up for it. It feels like an appropriate way to kick this week off, considering that she also feels like she’s blundering along blind into potentially dangerous territory. Why did she think she could pull this off?  


“So, how much lying am I going to have to do?” she asks in hope of distracting herself.  


“As little as possible, ideally. I haven’t told them much, just that we got together after Russ time and you’re still in school, so you can fill in the blanks from there.”  


“Oh. Okay. That's...convenient.” It’s a perfectly good generic cover, but it’s close enough to the truth for her to wonder if he thought of her specifically when pressed to make up a girlfriend. She dismisses the thought and whatever it might mean as quickly as it appears. No need to complicate this week any more than she has to.  


“And you already find me attractive, obviously, so no need to fake that. Actually you might need to tone it down.”  


“I'll try to contain myself,” she says drily, and he chuckles before they lapse into silence again.  


“You don’t have to be nervous you know.”  


She looks up, startled. “I’m not.”  


“So all that nail polish on the seat is just you decorating my upholstery? I do like it, it’s festive.”  


Her face burns and she opens her mouth to retort, but can’t come up with anything before he talks again.  


“Don’t get me wrong, my family is super annoying, but they’re only mean to blood relatives so you’ll be fine.” He takes his eyes off the road for a second to smile at her and pat her knee, which she’s surprised to find does help her stomach unclench a little.  


After another thirty minutes of driving they reach their destination. A winding driveway leads them up to a large main building with a cluster of cabins scattered behind it; all bright, cheery colors that stick out against the snow like paint drops on a canvas.  


“Do you know which is ours?” she asks.  


“Not sure. The red one’s the best but Harald always tries to call dibs on it, the prick, so we usually end up picking names out of a hat to make it fair for everyone-”  


“Oh, you rented more than one?”  


He laughs as he parks the car. “We rent all of them.”  


" _What?_ ” She nearly gets a crick in her neck whipping her head back toward the window to count. There are at least eight that she can see, and each is enough to hold a small family on its own. “Chris, what the fuck? I thought you said you had a small family.”  


He shrugs. “Well, it's just my mom and dad and me in Oslo but I have like, seven aunts and uncles from Trondheim. So with all my cousins and their kids that comes to about...fifty?”  


“And you didn’t think that was something I’d want a heads-up on?!” she hisses. Her stomach has gone past tense into full-blown nausea now. This was definitely a terrible idea. It was bad enough when she was imagining meeting a handful of Chris’s relatives, and now she’ll have to contend with an entire clan of them? Shit, shit, _shit_.  


She must really look like she’s about to be sick because Chris turns in his seat to face her and squeezes her shoulders.  


“Eva, relax. There’s no pressure, you won’t even have to see them again after this week. And if you really can’t take it we can bail early, okay?”  


She takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. The shock is wearing off, and his hands have moved to stroke the back of her neck in the way that makes her sleepy and warm.  


“It’s fine,” she sighs after another few seconds. “I can do this. Really.” She smiles to convince him and he returns it, until an insistent tapping sound on his window makes them both jump.  


“Hey!” a muffled voice calls. “Quit making out and come say hello!”  


The voice, it turns out, belongs to a gorgeous brunette in her twenties who introduces herself as Nina.  


“You must be Eva!” she squeals, and pulls her into a tight hug the second she steps out of the car. “We've all been dying to meet Chris's secret mystery girlfriend.”  


“Well uh, here I am!” She lifts her arms in a half-hearted “ta-da” gesture.  


Nina gives her the same toothy grin that she's seen on Chris when she does something funny and says, “You're so cute. Now come inside, it's freezing out here.” Eva lets herself be steered toward the entrance but looks back over her shoulder when Chris calls out sarcastically,  


“Nice to see you too, Neen!”  


“Sorry, you’re old news,” she replies, not even bothering to turn her head. “Way to take your sweet time getting here, by the way! Your mom was having a conniption thinking you'd drove off a cliff or something.”  


“The weather was shit, what do you want from me?” he huffs when he catches up to them, dragging their luggage along. “Can I get a hand here?”  


Nina snorts. “What am I, the butler? And what are you spending all that time at the gym for if you can't carry a few bags by yourself?  


Eva laughs but takes her duffel from him while trying desperately to keep up with Nina’s long strides and energetic chattering.  


“-on the plus side since you guys are last to get here you can meet everybody all at once. Ready?”  


Before Eva has a chance to reply she shoves the heavy wooden doors open and shouts,  


“Look who’s here!”  


-  


The next hour is a blur. Eva takes special care to commit Chris’s parents to memory, but quickly loses track of the grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and second cousins all crowding around for handshakes or hugs. It’s all she can do to smile and nod to each new face that enters her line of sight, and by the end of it she's more than a little exhausted. She clings to Chris like a lifeline, but he seems to take it in stride, slinging an arm around her as absorbs most of the teasing from his rowdier cousins.  


“Can't believe little Chris got his first real girlfriend,” one coos.  


“Guys, I've had girlfriends before,” Chris protests exasperatedly.  


“They don't count if we haven't met them, you know that.”  


Eva's eyebrows shoot up. “Wait, I'm the only girl you've introduced to your family?”  


She doesn't know why this shocks her, but it does. From what she'd gathered, Chris hadn't been truly single since late elementary school, so she thought at least one of them would have made it to some family function or another. But judging by the laughter her question elicits, she's mistaken.  


“Yeah, poor kid can't get a date to save his life,” another guy laughs.  


“And she's way out of his league, right? Be honest, did he pay you to be here?” This one is Harald, she's 90% sure.  


“If you guys are wondering why I've never brought anyone to meet you, this-” Chris sweeps his arm out at them- “is why.”  


“Aw, you know we love you,” Nina says. She winks at Eva. “We just have to pick on him because he’s the baby.” Chris swats her hand away when she pinches his cheek, which is turning slightly pink.  


After a quick scan around the room Eva realizes that they are the youngest ones there aside from the actual children, of whom the oldest can't be more than eight.  


Harald laughs and nods. “Yeah, it's karma for him being such a brat when we were growing up. All he had to do was pretend to cry and he could get away with murder.”  


She hides a smile behind her hand as she pictures a tiny Chris running after the older kids and making a nuisance of himself. It's not that difficult to imagine.  


Another girl cousin, this one blonde, adds, “Let us know if you want to see any embarrassing photos of him from back then.” She stage-whispers with an infectious glee that has Eva grinning along with her, “His hair was _awful_.”  


Chris rolls his eyes. “First of all, I've always been adorable, and second of all, you crimped your hair until you were sixteen Britt, so maybe you're not the best judge of what's fashionable and what's not. Did you pick rooms yet?”  


Chris's dad, who has been lingering on the edge of the group, claps a hand on his shoulder. “We're in Blue this time,” he informs them, looking slightly apologetic.  


“Again?” Chris groans. “That one's tiny.”  


“Cozy,” his mom corrects him with a smile that quickly turns to a concerned frown. “Did you want to go lay down now? You must be tired from the drive.”  


He glances at Eva, who tries not to nod too frantically, and the four of them say their goodbyes to trudge down the snowy path to the cabins.  


-  


Even though Eva has no basis for comparison, in her opinion their accommodations are perfect. It's a beautiful little sky blue cottage with a floor-to-ceiling window on one side of the house, through which she can see a fire already crackling in the fireplace. Once they get inside she's engulfed in flickering light, warmth, and the smell of cedar. It's so nice that she feels like she could curl up on the floor and fall asleep right there.  


Fortunately, Chris's parents seem to be of the same opinion, and his father heads straight to the master bedroom with a yawn and a mumbled “Sleep well” to them all.  


Eva peers down the hall and sees two more doors, one of which is a bathroom so the last one must be theirs. She feels an acute sense of longing to dive headfirst into whatever bed must be waiting there for her, but Chris's mother clears her throat with unmistakable intent, so she stays put.  


“We're trusting you to share a room,” she says, blue eyes boring into Chris, “with a reminder that while I do want grandchildren I don't want them anytime soon.”  


“ _Mom_ ,” he groans through the hand now covering his face. Eva's never seen him look so embarrassed, and is sure that she’d enjoy it much more if she wasn't equally mortified.  


“I'm just saying that I know it's tempting to be...intimate when you've never shared a bed before, but the walls are thin and your father and I are right next-”  


“Okay, yup, goodnight Mom.” In one fluid motion he pecks her on the cheek, pulls Eva into the room, and closes the door before she can finish her thought.  


They toss their bags unceremoniously into a corner and flop down on the bed. It's bigger than the one in his dorm, but there still isn't much room for anything other than the two of them on it.  


Eva just lays there for a minute, appreciating the quiet after all the commotion leading up to it, but eventually the curiosity that's been brewing inside her bubbles to the surface and she has to ask.  


“Does your mom really think we've never-” She rolls onto her side and gestures vaguely between them.  


He huffs out a laugh. “As far as she knows I'm saving myself until marriage.”  


Her head nearly falls off the hand propping it up. “What? _How_?”  


“Do you keep your mom updated on your sex life?” he asks, eyebrow raised sarcastically.  


“No! But you're so…”  


“So what?”  


“...Active.”  


“And what is that supposed to mean?” He tries to sound offended but she knows it's bullshit by the way his lips are twitching at the corners.  


“Oh spare me. She's seriously never caught you with anyone before?”  


“She's been a stay-at-home mom since I was little so it was way more trouble than it was worth to try and sneak anyone in and out. Why do you think we always went to your place in summer?”  


“I just thought it was because you're a freeloader who'd rather steal my Pop Tarts than make your own breakfast.” She pokes his side and jumps to her feet. “I'll shower first.”  


“Don't steal all the hot water,” he yawns.  


Eva burrows underneath the covers as soon as she’s back in the room, and she’s almost asleep by the time Chris takes his turn, but still conscious enough to feel the mattress dipping under his weight.  


“Hey,” he whispers, voice low and sweet the way he makes it when he’s trying to be seductive. She can admit that it still works on some level, but the fact that she’s heard it enough for it to be instantly recognizable renders it more funny than arousing at this point.  


“Hm?”  


She lets him kiss the back of her neck, but when his fingers start to trace the hem of her pajama pants she grabs his hand.  


“Seriously?” She turns to look at him, half amused and half exasperated. “How can you be in the mood to do _anything_ after the whole thing with your mom?”  


He shrugs. “Are you really that surprised? And that was like an hour ago, I’m over it.”  


“Well I’m not! I can’t have sex with you knowing your parents might hear. Or walk in, God forbid.”  


“So we’re not...for the entire week?”  


He looks so crestfallen that she has to laugh. “I didn’t say that, don’t be ridiculous. But not if your parents are within fifty feet of us. Okay?”  


“Okay okay,” he grumbles, but pulls her closer so they can spoon. It’s both strange and familiar. Chris is a closet cuddler, much as he denies it, so nine times out of ten they’ll wake up tangled together if they pass out in the same bed, but they don’t usually start that way. It’s kind of nice though. The warmth is certainly appreciated, and the rise and fall 

of his chest helps her even out her own breathing.  


She’s beginning to drift off again when he says, “Thanks. For doing this.” It’s so quiet and earnest she’s almost glad that she’s not facing him so he can’t see the surprise on her face.  


“It’s no big deal. Glad to help.”  


Eva wriggles a little to get more comfortable and he sighs, then asks, “What if we were _really_ quiet though?”  


“ _Goodnight_ Chris,” she giggles.  


“...Goodnight Eva.”

  


**Monday, December 19, 9:27 A.M.**  


When Chris pads down the stairs in socked feet the next morning, everyone else seems to have been up for a while. His dad is buried in a newspaper as usual, and his mom is chatting with Eva like they’re old friends as they scramble eggs and pour batter into the waffle iron. He’s surprised and relieved that Eva looks so at ease; after her freak-out last night he’d figured she’d be more reserved, the way she’d come off back when they’d first met.  


The last step creaks when he puts his weight on it, drawing everyone’s attention to him.  


“Good morning sleepyhead,” his mom chirps. Once he gets near enough he leans down so she can press a kiss to his forehead, something she insists on despite the fact that he’s been taller than her for at least four years now.  


Eva’s watching them with a funny little smile so he sidles up next to her at the counter and gives her a gentle hip-check.  


“What are you doing?” he asks.  


“Waiting for you to come down so we can eat.” She dumps the eggs on a plate and sets them on the table, and once his mom pries the last waffle from the iron they sit and dig in.  


“Your mom was telling me about all the stuff you guys do here. It sounds...busy”  


“We’ve been coming here since _I_ was a teenager, so we kept adding activities to keep things interesting.” His mom beams, already in full Stepford mode. “What do you usually do around the holidays, Eva? Maybe we could incorporate some of your traditions into ours.”  


“Oh, well...it’s usually just my mom and me, so we just have dinner and watch movies on TV. Nothing fancy.”  


“I hope she’s not missing you too much this year.”  


“Nope! She had to travel for work so it was good timing actually.” She takes a bite of waffle while his mom struggles to keep her smile intact.  


“So you would have been alone? On Christmas?” She tries valiantly to keep the horror out of her voice, but he can tell Eva’s picked up on it by the way she rushes to reassure her.  


“It’s fine, really! She's been doing this for a while so I'm used to it now.”  


He doesn't think that statement had quite the effect she was hoping for, because now his mom is looking at her like she's a kitten left out in the rain.  


“What about your father?”  


Eva's smile falls slightly.  


“He uh...he lives in Bergen. My parents got divorced when I was twelve and then he remarried and we moved so we just kind of...lost touch.”  


His mom seems to finally realize that she's overstepped some personal boundaries and falls silent. They're nearly swallowed up by the awkwardness until his own father, who has apparently not been paying any attention to the conversation going on around him, looks up from his crossword puzzle and says,  


“Irene, what's the name of that actor in all those movies you like? It's one of the clues today.”  


She pounces eagerly on the new topic, and Chris breathes a sigh of relief as he returns to his eggs.  


-  


Eva insists on collecting all the dishes to wash when everyone is finished, and after his mom stares him down he follows to help.  


“Sorry,” he says in a low voice as they rinse plates in the sink. “Mom’s not satisfied until she knows everybody's business.”  


“It's okay. I'm getting to learn way too much about your family this week, it's only fair that you hear about mine.” She smirks and flicks water at him, to which he responds by rat-tailing her with the dish towel. She really doesn’t seem bothered so he doesn't bring it up again, but it leaves him oddly...uncomfortable, he supposes.  


He should have cut his mom off, saved her from having to answer, but to be honest he'd been a bit curious himself. They don't really talk about stuff outside of the things in their lives that already overlap, like their friends, or school, or whatever they can remember from the last party they went to.  


However, he's spent enough time in Eva's house to know that her mom is rarely there, and the fact that she's never even mentioned her dad in passing was always slightly disconcerting, but it wasn't really his business, so he didn’t ask. It still isn't, but now he knows all the same. He’s not sure how to feel about that.  


Chris looks at his parents still at the table, now having finished the crossword and moving on to read separate sections of the paper. They’re not perfect; his dad has always been kind of detached and more involved in work than home stuff, but now that he’s older that suits Chris just fine, and he figures his mom smothers him enough to make up for it. He wonders what it would be like to have only one of them around, and to only see them a few weeks or months at a time.  


They finish the dishes and after Chris goes back upstairs to get dressed there’s a knock on the door.  


Britt and her husband are standing outside with most of the younger kids, so bundled up that the only way he can tell it’s her is by the blonde hair sticking out of her hat. She starts to talk, muffled at first, then pulls her scarf down so they can actually understand. “Guess who’s on babysitting duty today!”  


“Of course. Snow wars?”  


“Snow wars!” she yells, and the kids take off running.  


“Give us five minutes,” he calls after them, and Britt waves in acknowledgment.  


“Will we be watching them the whole day?” Eva asks.  


“A few hours at least. The older cousins pawn them off on us because they want a chance to day drink in peace.”  


“Christoffer,” his mom admonishes from the kitchen table, but his dad chuckles so he’s not in real trouble.  


“Oh. Okay.”  


He can’t help the laugh that escapes him when he sees the tension on her face. “You’re nervous?”  


“No, I’ve just never really...hung out with kids before.”  


“They’re not that complicated.” He stands and holds a hand out to her when she finishes zipping up her boots. She looks reluctantly at it. “Come on, they won’t bite. Well, Lilli might but she’s three, so they’re working on that.”  


Eva rolls her eyes at him, but she also cracks a smile and lets him pull her up, so he counts that as a win.  


It's already anarchy when they head outside.  


Everyone is busy making snowballs and digging trenches and piling up snow for fort walls, but some notice their arrival and rush over to claim them.  


“Chris, help me dig!” Heidi demands, imperious in the way only a five year-old can be.  


“Can you make snowballs?” Gunnar asks Eva, trying to assess her worth.  


“Yes?”  


He nods, announces, “She's on our team!” and grabs her mittened hand to drag her over to his side.  


“Chris!” Heidi whines and pulls on his arm. If he goes with her Eva will be on her own, but she's already rolling snow alongside Gunnar and Annette, so he goes to dig on the opposite, glancing up every once in a while to make sure she's not being cannibalized or whatever it is she's afraid of.  


But for all her initial hesitance, Eva is a hit with the kids. He can see them crowding around her and hear their questions from twenty feet away, everything from where she's from to her favorite animal to why her hair is the color that it is.  


Chris isn’t safe from interrogation either. Heidi squints across the field as they dig and asks, “So you like like Eva?”  


“Yup.”  


“She’s pretty.”  


“I know.”  


Rob wrinkles his nose, preemptively disgusted. “Do you kiss?”  


“Yeah buddy.”  


“Gross!”  


“Are you going to get married?” Laila asks delightedly.  


“I don’t know!” he says. “We’re too young for that.”  


Heidi frowns. “No you’re not, you’re so old! You’re taller than my pappa already.”  


He looks to Britt’s husband Frank, who claps his hands together and calls, “I thought we were having a snowball fight, what happened to that?” Mercifully, that’s enough to get them back on task and Chris's marital status is largely forgotten.  


-  


Once the battle gets underway Eva further ingratiates herself to the kids (and Britt, probably) when she nails Chris in the face with a well-aimed snowball. After that he hops the fort into no-man's land, throws her over his shoulder, and dumps her into the nearest snowbank, effectively ending the first skirmish.  


“That’s cheating!” she gasps when she finishes spitting snow out of her mouth.  


He scoffs. “You think there are rules here?”  


“Oh, well in _that_ case-” She launches at his knees and everyone cheers when he hits the ground. They struggle and roll until finally he pins her, panting and overheated from the exertion. She laughs, bright and bubbly, and for a second he forgets where they are so he presses their chapped lips together, swallowing the rest of her laugh, and her soggy mittens cup his face to keep him in place. It's probably one of the least sexy kisses he's ever experienced, but far from the worst. In fact he's happy to let it go on longer, but all of a sudden he's being pelted with snowballs and broken icicles.  


“If we have to keep it PG so do you guys!” Britt shouts, and hurls another handful of loose snow at his back.  


-  


The spend most of the day outside, making snowmen, snow women, and one particularly ambitious snow-giraffe, until hunger, cold, and fading daylight drive them back indoors.  


Chris watches Eva from a few steps behind on the path. She’s holding Gunnar’s and Heidi’s hands as they walk, and the setting sun is catching her hair at an angle that practically makes it glow. It’s shorter now, but he kind of prefers it this way. She doesn’t hide behind it like a curtain the way she used to.  


“She’s sweet,” Britt says, interrupting his reverie. She’s fallen into step with him and smiles knowingly in Eva’s direction. Then, in order to make up for the moment of emotional authenticity, nudges his ribs none too gently with her elbow. “How’d she end up with a knucklehead like you?”  


“Just lucky I guess.” He grins at her and she elbows him again.  


“You or her?”  


“Why not both?”  


“Ugh, you’re sickening when you’re in love.”  


He can’t help the kneejerk reaction to splutter and shake his head. “Whoa, what? I’m not-”  


“Oh shut up, I saw how you look at her all day. You get so sappy there might as well be cartoon hearts popping out of your eyes.”  


He’s at a loss for how to proceed, so he says nothing. After all, the whole point of Eva coming along was to convince his family that they’re together, and apparently they’re doing an okay job of it. This is a good thing.  


Chris doesn’t know what Britt gleans from staring at him but whatever she sees on his face has her eyes lighting up. “Have you not told her?” she whispers.  


Oh, that’s a decent angle, he can work with that. He tries to look embarrassed and lowers his own voice to match hers.  


“Yeah, no, I haven’t, so can you not say anything about it to her? Or anybody, actually?”  


“Okay okay, I won’t. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think you have to worry about it. She seems pretty crazy about you too.” She stops and grimaces. “Wow. Just being near you is making me all mushy. I gotta go. Bye!” She waves and turns left to go to her cabin, and when the last of the kids are returned to their parents Chris catches up to Eva.  


“How was it?” he asks, throwing an arm around her shoulder. “Not so bad, right?”  


She shivers a little and leans into his armpit, chasing the warmth. “It was fun. Britt’s nice.”  


“Yeah. I guess she’s alright.”

  


**Tuesday, December 20, 12:30 P.M.**  


“So which cookies do you usually make?” Eva asks Nina as they roll out dough on a countertop. They (meaning the younger cousins and a handful of the older ones) have taken over the main lodge’s kitchen for what she’s found out is an all-day baking project.  


“Instead of seven sorts we usually end up doing ten because everybody has different favorites,” she explains. “But mostly we make gingerbread, macaroons, goro, and sandcake.”  


“Wow.”  


They start with gingerbread, making an array of stars, trees and men to put in the oven. Once their first pan is full Nina says, “So, how are you getting along? I know we’re kind of a lot to deal with all at once.”  


“I like it,” she answers honestly. “I’ve never had a big family so it’s kind of nice to see what it’s like.”  


“Well, it’s never boring at least.” They watch from across the room as Harald and Chris aim icing bags at each other like they’re in a shootout and Nina rolls her eyes. “Guys, don’t waste the icing.” She looks down, and then back up to say, “And please tell me you're not making gingerbread dicks like last year.”  


Chris raises his eyebrows and his mouth falls open in a fake gasp. “How immature do you think we are?”  


“Profoundly.”  


“I’m hurt. Also, on a completely unrelated note don't look at the next batch that comes out of the oven. They’re a surprise.”  


“Ugh. Is he this crude when it’s just the two of you?”  


“Worse,” Eva laughs. Honestly it’s been bizarre to see Chris in such a wholesome context these last few days. At first he seemed like a completely different person, but she realizes that’s not exactly true. Maybe it’s just unfair of her to assume that the guy who can hook up with every attractive person at a party or shotgun four beers in five minutes can’t also kiss his mother goodnight, or let each one of his baby cousins ride around on his shoulders until he’s falling over with exhaustion.  


“How did you two meet anyway?” Harald asks.  


Britt looks up from and claps her hands. “Oh yes, I want to hear the story!”  


Eva looks at Chris expectantly, and the shit-eating grin he gives her fills her with dread.  


“Why don't you tell it, babe?” he asks, the picture of nonchalance.  


She's going to murder him. He knows she’s awful at being put on the spot and even worse at lying, the fucker.  


“Uh, well…it was...kind of an accident,” she confesses, trying to stall for time. They’re all looking at her intently, and in that moment she decides to just tell it how it actually happened. Chris said himself to keep it simple, so she will.  


“We were at this party, and my friend asked me to find Chris, and I found him-” she points at him for emphasis- “but he was the wrong Chris. They were actually looking for a girl, and it was so awkward I just turned around and left.”  


She pauses and smirks at Chris, whose eyes widen at the realization of what’s coming next.  


“And _then_ he called me-”  


“I called her, after she stalked me on Instagram,” he interrupts.  


Harald rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, I'm sure she stalked you.”  


“She did! She went through and liked-”  


“I thought Eva was telling the story,” Nina says pointedly, then nudges her shoulder in encouragement. “Go on.”  


“I did add him,” she concedes, but then she continues, “And then he'd DM me all the time, inviting me to parties and trying to chat me up.”  


“There it is,” Britt laughs.  


The next part is a bit unflattering for the both of them, so she smooths it over by saying, “I didn't think he was serious about me though, so we cooled off for a while. But I'd still see him around school and he was at all the parties I went to and we sort of...reconnected.”  


Chris snorts at that, but he quickly turns it into a pretty convincing coughing fit. Besides, his cousins are too eager to make fun of him to notice.  


“Sounds like you were the stalker, showing up everywhere she was,” says Nina.  


“We went to the same school, you think we’d never run into each other?”  


Eva is dying to bring up the fact that he was still showing up to high school parties for her after he’d already graduated, but since she can’t do it without fucking up the cover story that's one chip of Chris dignity that will remain intact through this. She can tell by the look on his face that he’s regretting giving her the power over their relationship origin story, so that’s satisfying enough for her.  


Britt puts her chin in her flour-covered hands and leans forward. “How did he woo you? Any over-the-top romantic gestures we should know about?”  


“There was no wooing,” Eva says. “He didn’t really have to. We just like spending time together.” It’s kind of embarrassing to realize how true that statement is for her, especially since their version of “spending time together” mostly consists of drinking and sex. But of course they’re the only two who know that, so the family members who are listening are all very charmed. She can even hear a few “Aww”s from the older aunts as Chris makes eye contact with her and smiles, but if they were watching a bit more closely they’d be able to tell that he’s probably thinking about doing more than holding her hand right now.  


Eva excuses herself, and doesn’t even pretend to be surprised when he follows her out of the kitchen and into one of the lodge’s bathrooms.  


“You’re such an _asshole_ ,” she breathes in his ear, then bites his earlobe for emphasis. She’s not sure it sinks in though because all he does is laugh, press her more firmly against the door, and continue unbuttoning her flannel.  


Miraculously, no one comments on their disappearance when they return fifteen minutes later, but that might be because Chris immediately starts an icing fight with Harald, which escalates to a flour fight with the girls, and not one of them is left unscathed by the time they’re banished from the kitchen.

  


**Wednesday, December 21, 9:12 P.M.**  


It’s snowing heavily outside, but inside the lodge it’s almost uncomfortably warm. There’s a roaring fire going, and with everyone talking and drinking and milling around the massive, half-decorated pine tree in the corner of the room, Chris is practically sweating. He’s considering going outside to sit in the snow for a minute when he feels a tug on the hem of his shirt and looks down.  


It’s Heidi, standing with an ornament clasped in her hands.  


“I wanna hang my star up there.” She points to a bare spot above his head and looks at him imploringly. He sighs and pretends to look put-upon; Heidi knows the younger kids aren’t allowed to use the ladder to decorate the upper parts of the tree, but she also knows she’s his favorite. So after an intense ten-second staring contest he hoists her up so she can reach, but once the star is safely hung he pretends to lose his grip on her to make her squeal. She scampers off as soon as her feet hit the floor, and when he looks up 

Eva is watching him by the fire.  


She’s making the face he hasn’t seen very often on her until this week. Almost...surprised, but also pleased in a soft, sleepy sort of way. He’s not exactly sure what he’s doing to cause it but he’s glad to see it all the same. He flicks his eyebrows up at her in invitation and she pushes off the wall to join him.  


“Just like Kosegruppa, right?” he says drily.  


The corners of her mouth twitch as she considers it over the rim of her wineglass. “This one’s nice I guess, but I think I still prefer the other tree.”  


“Oh, for sure. What's Christmas without glitter condoms?”  


She laughs, but her face falls slightly when she looks at the pile of presents overflowing from the base of the tree.  


“Shit, I didn't bring any gifts, is that bad?”  


“Nah, my mom always packs extra for White Elephant and we can just say you gave me mine in private.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively and she smacks him on the arm. They back up slightly so the people doing actual decorating can reach the tree and end up leaning against a far wall to watch.  


“But seriously, thanks,” Eva says quietly. “It totally slipped my mind. I wouldn’t even know what counts as a good romantic gift anyway.”  


“So you and, uh-”  


“Jonas,” she supplies.  


“Yeah him. Did you never exchange gifts?”  


“We got together in between our birthdays and broke up before Christmas.”  


“But he wouldn’t even surprise you with, like, flowers?”  


“What?’ she laughs. “No, that's so cheesy! Who even does that in real life?”  


“What are you talking about? People do it all the time.”  


She looks at him as if he's the crazy one, which irks him.  


“So what _would_ you guys do together?”  


“Mostly just hang out, watch Netflix. It took forever to find a show we both liked because I'd want to watch Gossip Girl and he’d want to watch Westworld but eventually we found Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, so...” She shrugs. She’d probably like to change the subject, but it’s like the stuff with her dad. He wants to know more, even though he knows he’ll probably regret it once he does. And worse, now he’s not just a spectator, he’s the one pushing, and he can’t seem to stop himself.  


“Okay, but did you ever go out? In public?”  


“A few times, but usually Isak would end up tagging along.”  


“What? Seriously?”  


She shifts, folds her arms across her chest. “He was only officially my boyfriend for a few months.”  


“Sounds like he was barely your boyfriend at all.”  


He means it to be a joke but the look she gives him makes it clear that his tone was too snide, or that he's crossed a line the way he does sometimes when he's trying to be funny. Her voice is like acid when she replies.  


“I'm so sorry his performance didn't impress you. Remind me, how many times did you cheat on Iben again?”  


Okay, ouch. It’s a fair point, but it still tips him over the edge into being actually annoyed. He won’t pretend he was a good boyfriend to Iben, but he did at least try to make her feel special when they were together. And he hasn’t had a girlfriend since because he knows that there’s effort involved in that. If Eva’s standards for what it means to be in a relationship are that low, they could have easily been “dating” this entire time, which is incredibly frustrating for reasons he doesn’t have the patience to parse out right now.  


Thankfully he’s saved from having to respond when Nina comes up to them. “Hey hey, the cousins are playing Kings once everyone else goes to bed, are you guys in?”  


“Yes,” they say in unison, and Eva finishes her current glass of wine in one gulp.  


-  


The tree is finished and lit within the next half hour, and once they’ve admired it for another few minutes the family starts to filter out. The remaining childless cousins sit on the floor around a low coffee table with all manner of half-full bottles of liquor and wine and start pouring for each other into heavy crystal glasses that Nina’s boyfriend stole from the kitchen.  


“Sure you two can keep up with us?” Harald teases, and Chris and Eva share a look so sarcastic and in sync it has the rest of the table in hysterics. The challenge and the fun of the game wears away any residual awkwardness that their last conversation left them with, and by the end of the third round it feels like any other party they’d go to together. Especially when Britt starts playing music on her iPhone and Nina beckons Eva to get off Chris’s lap and come dance with them.  


It’s cold when she leaves, but he doesn’t mind too much because now he gets to watch her. He’d almost missed drunk Eva and her smiley, clumsy confidence. It’s the version of her he’s most familiar with, but now that he’s had a chance to see these other parts of her he’s not sure that he could pick a favorite anymore. He likes the Eva that’s shy, almost demure meeting new people, and how it wears off bit by bit the more comfortable she becomes. He likes the Eva that gets quiet and pensive, maybe even a bit melancholy when left to her own devices. The soft, warm Eva that’s just waking up or sipping coffee across the table from him. He even likes the Eva that doesn’t let him get away with it when he says dumb shit, even snaps back at him on occasion.  


He likes _her_ , he realizes, as a whole person. It shouldn’t be such a revelation but it is, and it’s shocking enough to make him take another shot of whiskey so he can calm the fuck down about it.  


Eventually the impromptu party dies down, and Britt and her husband are the first to yawn and duck their heads sheepishly as the rest all jeer at them for being old. But once they go the mood kind of shifts, and it feels odd to stay without everyone there, so they shuffle out into the cold not long after.  


The blue cabin is one of the last along the row, so he and Eva are the last pair on the path.  


“You’re so _quiet_ ,” Eva giggles. She leans into him with unexpected force and he topples over, but not without taking her down with him. He lands on his back and wheezes when she hits his chest, but she rolls off quickly enough with a “Whoops” and he catches his breath without too much trouble.  
It's only then that he notices it's stopped snowing. Everything around them is still and quiet, and the sky is glittering with more stars than they could ever hope to see back in Oslo.  


“Wow,” Eva whispers, and when he looks her gaze is also turned upward, breath turning the air above her to fog.  


The silence settles over them like a blanket, but it's peaceful, one neither of them feels the need to fill. Even when he starts to get the sensation that he might fall off the face of the Earth if he doesn't hold onto something, Eva's hand is within reach, and she grips him back tightly enough that he feels grounded again.  


He's so comfortable he could almost fall asleep, but whatever remaining common sense he has is telling him that might not be the best idea, so with Herculean effort he manages to sit up.  


Eva hasn't moved, and with her hair fanned out around her and her cheeks still rosy from the wine, all he can think is that she looks exactly like an angel ornament come to life.  


Fuck, he is drunk.  


“C’mon,” he murmurs, and pulls her up by their still-clasped hands.  


They walk the remaining twenty feet to their cabin and up the stairs with minimal stumbling, and he even relocates two buckets from next to the fireplace to either side of their bed, just in case.  


When he crawls into bed she kisses him, hot and purposeful, and he knows what she wants before she says it out loud. But there’s a niggling worry that’s not usually there, so he pulls back for a second. Her eyes are dark, almost all pupil and a little glazed, but still focused on him. And right now there’s some confusion flickering there as well.  


“Thought you didn’t want to do anything next door to my parents.”  


And like that the confusion melts into coy amusement. “I thought _you_ said we could be quiet,” she whispers, and that’s all the encouragement he needs.

  


**Thursday, December 22, 1:12 P.M.**  


“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Eva asks as she adjusts her beanie.  


Chris shakes his head gingerly and takes a sip of orange juice. “Nah. I’m not really into skiing. Besides, I’ve got stuff to do.”  


By “stuff” she assumes he means go back to bed and try not to puke. They’re both hungover, but Eva’s definitely better off. At least she’d had the forethought not to mix beer, whiskey and vodka last night. However, she can’t say that she’s never done something like it on a separate occasion, so she refrains from giving him a hard time about not coming out with them.  


Nina, has no such qualms.  


“Oh my god, you break three little bones when you’re twelve and suddenly you're “not into skiing” anymore. Such a quitter.”  


“See, I’d think of that as not so much being a quitter as listening to what the universe is trying to tell you,” says Nina’s boyfriend from behind his laptop.  


“Not a word out of you, Mr. I-have-an-important-conference-call-to-take,” she says, pointing aggressively at him. “You’re on thin ice too, we’re supposed to be on vacation and now you’re working the day away and leaving me without a skiing partner.”  


Despite that she gives him a kiss on the cheek before they go, and on a whim Eva does the same to Chris. It's only after they've left that she realizes that that was probably their first kiss that didn't involve tongue, which may explain why he looked so caught off guard by it.  


“Thanks for being my ski-buddy,” Nina says as they board their shuttle to the slopes.  


“No problem! I've been wanting to go actually, I'm glad you asked.”  


They lapse into silence for a minute, and when Eva glances over Nina is staring at her, biting the inside of her cheek.  


“Can I ask you something?” she says, like she’s been holding it in.  


“Uh, sure?”  


“I know it’s totally not my business and you don’t have to answer this but are you and Chris...okay? You said some things last night that made me a little concerned.”  


Eva feels like her stomach is going to lurch out of her body. She remembers almost everything from last night but the part between her last drink and walking back with Chris is more highlights reel than minute-to-minute coverage, so it’s possible she let something slip and forgot. If she fucked this up she'll never forgive herself, and neither will Chris, probably.  


“What did I say?” she asks.  


“You said you liked him a lot, but you wish he wasn’t...I think your exact words were “such a fuckboy”?”  


“Oh my God.” She buries her face in her hands.  


“You looked so sad. Has he cheated on you or something? Because I don’t care if he’s my cousin, I’ll kick his ass.”  


“No! Not exactly. He…” She tries to think of what to say. If she’s careful she can get out of this without completely blowing their cover. “He had kind of a...reputation, before we got together. And we weren’t totally exclusive in the beginning, so sometimes I just worry that he’s not that serious about us. Or that he’ll just get bored and move on eventually.”  


Nina nods pensively, collecting her thoughts.  


“I know we joke about him being perpetually single before you but that’s mostly just to mess with him. I actually covered for him once or twice when he wanted to sneak off with girls on other vacations, so I kind of understand where you’re coming from. But, family’s pretty important to him, and I think you must be too if he brought you here to meet us. I don’t think he’d do that if he wasn’t serious about you.” She smiles warmly, and Eva tries her best to look reassured even though she feels sick with guilt.  


She suddenly hates this whole situation; that she has to lie to these perfectly nice people who’ve been nothing but kind and welcoming to her. She’s angry at Chris for asking her to do it, but most of all she’s angry at the part of herself that wishes it was all real.  


It was small at first, easily ignored. But every day it’s grown, eating away at her with an aching, bittersweet hope that maybe when Chris looks proudly at her after she makes his parents laugh, when he holds her hand and kisses her under mistletoe in front of everyone even after the kids mock him for it, when he tells Harald to “leave my girlfriend alone” after singling her out to take an extra drink during Kings, that he really means it, just a little.  


And if this week was difficult, last night was even worse.  


They'd never had to be quiet before, and with the bed being as old as it is they’d had to either go maddeningly slow or risk making it creak. And when they inevitably did exactly that they froze in fear, then dissolved into stifled, relieved laughter when they heard his parents still snoring. It was different from any other time they’d had sex, completely ridiculous but somehow also more intimate, more intense.  


And after, when they lay facing each other, if she didn't know better she would have thought that he’d wanted to say something to her before they fell asleep. He’d certainly looked at her like he did.  


But she does know better, and Chris Schistad, Penetrator Chris, does not have romantic feelings for her or anyone else. It's just not realistic. They're in a bubble right now, surrounded by his family, so of course he’s giving her his full attention. She's sure the minute they're around other girls who aren't related to him he'll be his old self again and they'll go back to the way they were.  


She’s grateful that she and Nina don’t really get a chance to talk anymore once they’re out on the slopes, and she tries to just enjoy the day. She succeeds for the most part, and if she’s quiet on the ride back it can easily be chalked up to physical exhaustion.  


-  


When she gets back Chris isn’t there, and it’s not until an hour later that he walks into the main lodge and makes a beeline for her. Snow that had been clinging to his hair melts into her thighs as he flops sideways onto her lap.  


“Cold!” she complains, pushing him upright. “And you almost made me spill my cocoa.”  


“Warm me up then,” he says with a cheeky grin.  


She sighs but lets him under the blanket she has draped over her knees and even allows him a sip from her mug. “So you actually went out today?”  


He shrugs, and he says, slightly garbled through a half-melted marshmallow “Yeah, drove down into the village. I told you I had stuff to do.”  


“What kind of stuff?”  


“Just stuff.”  


She feels an annoyingly familiar sense of suspicion overtake her, and Nina’s words from earlier whisper in the back of her mind.  


_He’d sneak off with girls on other vacations.  
_

But no, she’s being stupid. She promised herself after Jonas she’d never be the Jealous Girlfriend ever again, and she’s certainly not about to do it over someone she’s not even actually dating. If Chris has a girl to hook up with in town, that’s great for him. It’s the same way it’s always been. They can hook up with whoever they like. Nothing’s changed.  


“Can’t believe that was the first time we’d been apart in like four days.”  


He says it lightly, like he’s making a joke, but he’s looking at her with an expression she can’t quite read. Has it really been such a hardship to be stuck with her that he’s relieved he had some time to himself? Or did he actually miss her? The latter feels way too indulgent and it embarrasses her to even entertain the idea for too long, so she assumes it’s the former even though it makes her chest burn with hurt.  


She sticks out her tongue at him though, trying to keep the mood playful. “I know, after the 25th you’ll have to find something else to do other than annoy me all day. However will you cope?”  


He smirks and steals another swallow of cocoa. “I dunno. Save up all my annoying energy til the next time I see you I guess.”  


“I’m sure you’ll find someone else to use it on way before then,” she says, hoping the bitterness rising in her throat isn’t bleeding into her voice. “I think I’ll go to bed early, okay? I’m tired.”  


She slips out from under the blanket and leaves him sitting with her half-full mug on the couch. The blast of cold air that cuts through her when she opens the door feels good in a masochistic kind of way. It’s harsh, but she can take it.

  


**Friday, December 23, 8:34 P.M.**  


Chris has never been less interested in a movie than he is with the one they’re currently watching. The whole family is piled on couches and chairs and pillows on the floor, all facing a projector screen pulled down in front of the fireplace. He understands that it’s tradition, but his movie-watching limit for ones that aren’t his favorites tend to stop at three, and this one goes way past that.  


He leans in to ask Eva how a Cinderella adaptation is considered Christmassy but she shushes him before he can finish.  


“This is my favorite part,” she whispers, and returns her attention to the unfolding events with the biggest smile he’s seen from her all day.  


She’s been quieter than usual today, but she might just be a little homesick. Or maybe he and his family finally wore her out. God knows William can’t be around him for more than an entire weekend before he needs a break, and he’s his best friend. She even said herself that he’s annoying, so he’s been trying to tiptoe around her a bit more than he normally would.  


They haven’t even really touched until now, but due to a lack of free space they’re more or less occupying a single armchair. Not that he’s complaining.  


Honestly one of the weirdest things about this week has been the touching. It's not like they didn't touch before; neither of them were ever shy about that, but the way it feels is just...different. They're just affectionate little nothing gestures that aren't foreplay for anything else, but they're kind of nice in their own way. The hand-holding, side-hugs that turn into an arm around his waist, resting his chin on her shoulder so he can see whatever she's looking at and smell her hair at the same time. He fell into it more easily than he thought he would, and he’ll probably miss it when this whole thing is over. But Eva made it pretty clear last night that she has no intention to continue this way after they get back, so he’ll just have to learn to live without it again.  


Which is fine. Really. He liked the thing he had with Eva before this week. It's fun and easy and uncomplicated, and if he has to give up seeing the way her nose scrunches up when she's about to spit out her toothpaste, or hearing her sing the latest Ariana Grande single in the shower, or feeling the warm, contented sensation he gets in his chest when she's falling asleep on his shoulder to keep it that way, then so be it.  


But that doesn't mean he can't enjoy it while it lasts.  


So he wraps his arms around her just a little more tightly, and smiles at the contented sigh she makes as she settles against him..  


This is fine. It’s enough. It has to be.

  


**Saturday, December 24, 7:45 A.M.**  


“Eva.”  


She feels something tickling her forehead and frowns, mumbles unhappily.  


“ _Eva_.”  


The tickling sensation travels up her eyebrow, feather-light and irritating enough for her to groan and open her eyes. Chris is laying face to face with her, wide awake and grinning.  


“Merry Christmas Eve,” he says.  


“Merry Christmas Eve,” she yawns, rubbing her eye and smiling back. “What time is it?”  


“Time to get up. The kids always want to open presents the second they’re awake so we let them go first and eat breakfast together in the main building. Just wear your pajamas over.”  


“Mkay.”  


She makes the torturous move to get out of their warm bed and onto freezing floorboards with minimal whining, and by the time she makes it downstairs Chris’s mom has already prepared thermoses of coffee for them to clutch as they make their way outside.  


It’s kind of hysterical to see Chris’s parents zombie-shuffle through the snow in front of her, but she knows she definitely looks just as bad, so she holds in any errant giggles she has until they’re inside.  


The lodge is bright and alive with laughing toddlers, and the outer edges of the room are lined with their exhausted but pleased parents. It really is fun to see the chaos of children experiencing the holiday with all of the magic still intact. She hasn’t had that since she was six or seven, and it fills her with bittersweet happiness as she watches.  


The morning seems to Eva to go by too quickly, like water slipping through her fingers. Once all the packages are opened and every scrap of wrapping paper is thoroughly shredded, they move on to breakfast, then the White Elephant gift exchange, where everyone ends up with an assortment of gift cards, chocolates, or luxury products. She clutches her new box of truffles and tries not to feel so desperately sad that tomorrow it will all be over, and she’ll be going home to an empty house, made all the more empty with the lack of a family that isn’t even hers, and tries to feel grateful instead.  


And that’s when Chris appears, looking utterly ridiculous in a pair of reindeer antlers and holding a large gift bag.  


“I know we said no gifts but I just...wanted to, so-” He holds it out for her and she stares dumbly at it for a second, but eventually she comes to her senses and takes it.  


Inside is an almost comically large bouquet of roses. If she counted there would probably be two dozen, maybe more. But the real kicker is what’s underneath.  


A box set of Gossip Girl DVDs, with a card on top that reads  


**_Get you a man who can do both ;)  
XOXO, Chris_**  


She looks up and sees that almost everyone is watching them now. They’re waiting to for her reaction, but she has no idea how to feel about this.  


“How…?”  


“This was the stuff I did in town. I got lucky and found a store that had the set.” He tilts his head, and the antlers fall off. “...Do you like it?”  


She feels her face flushing, and it’s been too long for her not to have said anything, but she can’t, so she drops the bag and walks out the door.  


At least, she walks until she’s outside. Then she starts sprinting toward the cabin, not stopping until she hears someone call her name.  


“Eva,” Chris pants when he catches up to her, breath condensing in the air in front of him. “What the fuck?”  


“Why did you do that?”  


“Do what?” The clueless, perplexed look on his face pushes her over the edge, and now she’s no longer confused about how she feels.  


She’s fucking angry.  


“You wanted me to play along with your bullshit, fine! But you didn't-” She wipes furiously at the tears leaking out of her eyes and freezing on her cheeks. “You didn’t have to mix all this personal shit into it. What are you trying to prove anyway? That you're better than Jonas?”  


“What? No!”  


“Then why are you rubbing it in my face? Or did you just feel sorry for me? I don’t need you to give me a _pity present_ just because-”  


“That's not-” He groans frustratedly and drags a hand over his face. Then he says, more quietly, “I just think you deserve better.”  


“From who?!” She's practically shouting now but she doesn't care anymore. She's had enough. “The last time I checked, I didn't have a real fucking boyfriend!”  


He stares at her, dumbfounded, and she turns back around. She starts to move toward the cabin again when she hears,  


“What if I want to be?”  


She freezes. Looks back at him. He’s still standing there, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders up to his ears to brace against the wind. She realizes distantly that neither of them are wearing coats.  


“You want to be my boyfriend?”  


He huffs, rolls his eyes. “Yes, Eva, I want to be your real fucking boyfriend.”  


She takes a cautious step toward him. “What happened to no strings attached?”  


“I just...I don’t think I can go back to how it was after all this. Can you?”  


“...No,” she admits, and he inches forward. “But do you really think we can make this work?”  


“Listen, I definitely won’t be perfect. But I want to try, and that’s something, right? I’ve never wanted to try before.” He’s close enough now that he can thumb away the last remaining tears on her face. “Don’t make me beg,” he murmurs, then smiles tentatively when she leans into his hand.  


“If we do this,” she starts, and his smile turns to a full-blown grin- “I’m getting full girlfriend perks. Dates, _monogamy_ , more invites to major family events-”  


“Whatever you want,” he laughs, then shudders. “Can we draw up the paperwork inside though? It’s fucking freezing out here.”  


They walk back, clinging to each other for warmth, and it might be hypothermia setting in but Eva feels giddy.  


“You know,” she says, teeth chattering, “you still owe me a favor.”  


“Oh yeah?” He looks at her with amusement as they step onto the porch.  


“And I know what I want.”  


“What?”  


“My mom was thinking of hosting a New Year’s Eve party when she gets back, but I don’t have a date yet. Do you know anyone who can help me out?”  


He pulls her in for a kiss, and the heat of his mouth warms her entire body from the inside. She curls her fists into the back of his sweater, and laughs into his neck when he says, “I think I might have someone in mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh it's done! I literally sat up in bed a month ago in the middle of the night and wrote down a vague outline while half asleep that turned into this. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it!   
> I'm on tumblr as kalique-abrasaxx if you want to come yell at me about Skam or just watch me yell into the void about it in my tags. Happy Holidays everybody <3


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